How easily can you forgive?

Can you transform all those negative thoughts towards another human into forgiveness? Can you say - I can see you are human, you are on a life path where you are learning and growing and I forgive you for what happened? Can you, at a minimum, think to yourself - You hurt me, I wish it didn’t happen, but I forgive you.

Being really upset, angry and even despising someone is really draining and really damaging.

I will share with you a situation where a member of the community wrongly accused me of something that was not true. It was very public and very hurtful. What’s worse, they were in a position of power, in a situation where I had none.

This felt very traumatic and painful.

In life there’s both big “T” trauma and little “t” trauma. Some of us have big “T” Trauma ~ abuse of all sorts, PTSD, big things that are enduring.

I will not go into that here - I know you know what I mean by big T.

Not everyone has big T trauma.

But aLL of us have little ‘t’ trauma.

Little ‘t’ is just part of being human and being in relationships with other humans.

We have them all the time.

This situation was a little ‘t’ but made a BIG impact on my life. It was loud and proud, and a definite infliction of pain. I could see after the event, the person felt powerful. They were righteous. Their ego was on display and at that time. That energy caught on to me, and it made me angry and scornful in the moment.

I remember the distinct feeling of thinking why are they doing this to me? None of this is true. What can I do to make them stop?

It was a very difficult situation and as I said, they had all the power and I had none. It made me feel anxious. I felt my blood pressure rise and my nervous system get heightened every time I saw them. It then affected how I could make decisions and solve problems. It was harder for me to think clearly at that time as it made me doubt myself.

I was seriously discombobulated. I had that muddled feeling we get when we are out of flow, because my personal energy field had been disrupted and my values were questioned. I felt as though I was publicly put on trial.

I know very well harboring and holding onto heavy emotions is not good for the body cells. I knew these feelings were hurting me.

As weeks went by, I got the feeling I was not the only person disrupted by this situation and the behaviour of this community figure.

It got me to thinking about all the scorn they were receiving.

Was this weighing them down?

I wondered if the weight of the negativity feeds the negative loop and it made it harder for them to be a better human?

Because it was certainly weighing me down!

The anger I held was making my life much harder.

Thoughts have energy.

I know this.

I knew I must turn this around.

Was it easy?

No.

Did I want to go back to being negative. Yes!

How did I do this?

One thing I know for sure is that you need a plan!

Firstly, I did not

· put myself in a situation to be hurt and suffer more

· expect an apology

What I did instead was …

· protected myself against any future hurt by limiting my interactions until I had a plan for how to engage

· chose confidants to help counsel me and talk through my best course of action now and into the future

· decided what I wanted from the situation

· instigated some emotional freedom technique (EFT) tapping

· chose to mentally move on

I mostly had to decide with my mind that I am not hanging more negative energy on them. I was not going to contribute to this situation.

Did I forgive?

As hard as it was, I decided I had to let that negative energy go.

I eventually had to find a way to get on with things because I would not allow this situation consume me for a second longer.

The anger and pain were stopping me from living life well.

I forgave the situation and the moment for them as well as for me.

Not forgiving was too damaging for all of us.

Will the person ever realise the hurt they created or have created?

I don’t know.

I have to hope they will find a better way in the future. You always have to have hope.

That moment and time was not a place to go into combat, I did not have the energy or the desire to do so.

I had to dig in, hold my head high, keep going and move on.

I also needed to forgive to know that I am not contributing to that negative energy field anymore.

Can you relate? How do you forgive?

I would love to hear your story of forgiveness.

XXX